Tourists have been evacuated from one of the most iconic bridges in Paris after it began to crumble under the weight of thousands of ‘love locks’.

A chunk of the Pont des Arts bridge fell away on Sunday night and the police were called to seal off the area which remains closed today.

It is a popular custom for tourists to secure a padlock to the bridge branded with their names as a romantic gesture, but the weight of the locks is damaging the metal bridge, which was originally completed in 1804 but rebuilt in the 1980s following damage n the two World Wars.

It has become common practice for visitors to buy a padlock, attach it to a bridge, and then throw the key into the river, in Paris’s case the Seine.

The practice has been encouraged by American celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, who spent a lot of time dating in Paris before their wedding in Italy last month.

A ‘Not Love Locks’ campaign was launched in Paris by two Americans in February, in response to some 700,000 padlocks appearing around the city.

Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, has so far resisted calls to take action over the vandalism, but the bridge collapse could change that.

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